A Fascinating Temporary Sculpture For The Forest Of Dean Sculpture Trail: Colin Glen ‘The Clearing’ (press release)
1st – 28th June 2009
A two-part work at both The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail and at No.1 Middle St. Stroud
The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trust and the Forestry Commission are delighted to be hosting one part of this split-site sculpture, which is located on both sides of the River Severn in Gloucestershire.
The Clearing, Colin Glen’s new work in partnership with The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail, Jelf Projects and Stroud Valleys Artspace, will create an intriguing connection between two contrasting places, a former gallery space in a busy residential part of Stroud on the one hand, and the quiet stillness of a woodland glade in the Forest of Dean. The work will act as the starting point for a series of discussion events as part of Glen’s ongoing ‘in negotiation’ project, which encourages opinion, conversation and conflict as an essential element of critical process.
Placed in a clearing on the Sculpture Trail, the skeletal construction in a whitened timber framework will recreate the internal dimensions of the vacant gallery; whilst on the walls of the gallery space in Stroud will hang photographs of views from the sculpture looking out into the surrounding woods. The artist says of the work “The Clearing releases the imagination to create an umbilical cord between the private contemplative space of an empty gallery and the nourishing otherness of the magical world of the Forest”.
Glen has been highly influenced by the work of Ian Hamilton Finlay, whose work ‘Silence’ is also on the Trail. The title ‘The Clearing’ is taken from a poem by Thomas A. Clark, a close associate of Finlay, where he suggest that a gallery can be ‘a space like a clearing in a wood’. The Clearing could be considered the opposite of Raw, another sculpture on the Trail by Neville Gabie. The Clearing occupies a found clearing, whilst the making of Raw created a clearing. Glen and Gabie will discuss this and other issues relating to creating sculpture in a woodland setting on Saturday 6th June. The conversation provides an opportunity for the public to come and hear more about the processes behind making sculpture and is free entry. Glen will be at the sculpture from 1-1.45pm to talk to people about it, before going to the loft at Beechenhurst Lodge, where the event will begin at 2pm. There will also be workshops for families and young people, held in partnership with Cinderford Artspace. Please visit the website for further details: www.forestofdean-sculpture.org.uk, or find us on Facebook – Friends Of The Forest Of Dean Sculpture Trail.
Colin Glen has shown locally in the site Darbyshire Award in 2007 and 2008 and also more widely with the curator Lisa Le Feuvre at Bankley Studios in Manchester and at Daniel Chadwick selected shows in Liverpool and Paris. He is a studio member and is actively involved in the programme at artist- run space SVA in Stroud. He is also an art writer and publishes with magazines ArtMonthly and a-n magazines as well as various catalogue essays and is currently reading for a research degree at the University of Bristol. This is the second time he has shown with Oliver Jelf, the first being in the group show in autumn 2008 entitled ‘Visual Pleasure’
The Clearing is supported in kind by Jelf Projects, Stroud Valleys Artspace, The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trust, Forestry Commission and Quitewrite.